Mars is Fighting a World War

Chen Zhao scrolled through news on his phone while eating breakfast.

"Mars astronaut James suffers severe frostbite, life in critical condition."

The news was everywhere, with almost every media outlet reporting on it.

The reports only said that James had suffered frostbite and was in terrible condition, with no guarantee that he would pull through. They did not mention the cause.

Chen Zhao shrugged. He could guess what had happened with his toes. That guy must have snuck out in the middle of the night to steal Gun, only to get frostbitten by the low temperature.

Curiosity could not only kill cats—it could kill astronauts too.

He had no idea whether James would make it.

But it had nothing to do with him. The warning had already been given. If they refused to listen, that was their own problem.

After breakfast, Chen Zhao strolled to the laboratory, shut the door, and continued his experiments.

The experiment he was working on was actually quite simple: an upgraded version of Gun.

The Gun currently on Mars had already spread across the ground, generating a great deal of water vapor over the Martian surface.

However, from the standpoint of improving Mars's atmosphere, Gun's performance was still insufficient.

If they wanted to raise Mars's oxygen content to a level similar to Earth's, then at Gun's current rate of oxygen production, it would take at least another sixty years.

Increasing the atmospheric density would take even longer—several centuries.

They could not wait that long. They had to speed things up.

Chen Zhao also hoped that rivers, lakes, and seas could appear on Mars, but at Gun's current rate of water production, it would still take a century before a sea could form.

They could not wait for that either.

It was far too long.

Time!